I started at Yulia’s voice coming from right over my shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Concern dimmed her friendly smile. “You look a little shaken.”
“Oh, uh, yeah, no, I’m fine. Just, yeah, I’m okay.” I wasn’t about to admit that my deep-seated infatuation with Jonny Lim had left me more than slightly incapacitated.
She looked like she didn’t believe me. Who could blame her when a warm flush on my cheeks accompanied my incoherent blubbering?
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I tried for a wide smile, the one I used to convey confidence I didn’t feel. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” She still didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t pursue it. “So, drinks?”
It’d been a while since I’d hung out with them. My awkward self-consciousness meant I liked my own company more than the hubbub of social interaction. But years of navigating academia had taught me the importance of developing relationships with colleagues, and I’d learned how to fake some modicum of social competence. “Yeah, that sounds nice. Thanks for inviting me.”
“Of course!”
We joined the flow of people inching out of the room. Every step took me a little farther away from Jonny, and I fought the urge to glance over my shoulder at him. When we got to the door, I caved. This would probably be the last time I saw him in person, and a little part of me—okay fine, a big part of me—mourned the thought.
Yulia caught me casting longing eyes in Jonny’s direction. “You want to go say hi before we leave?”
I did. And I didn’t. What would I say to him? Would I be able to string a sentence together? Better to ogle from afar than make a complete fool of myself in front of him. It was moments like these that I hated being so shy, but try as I might, I couldn’t shake it. “No, I’m okay,” I croaked.
And then we left.
* * *
I said goodbye to my last student and stuffed my teaching materials into my backpack. I wouldn’t say I loved teaching. Standing in front of a room filled with people staring at me wasn’t my idea of a good time, but with enough lesson prep, I’d figured out how to not dissolve into a complete wreck.
Slinging my backpack on, I adjusted the straps so the weight sat evenly between my shoulders. With a flip of the light switch, I headed to Dr. Fernandez’s office. The department had offered a political discourse theorist a research fellowship, and Dr. Fernandez wanted me to show him around campus. Why he’d thought I'd make a good tour guide was beyond me. The admissions office had people trained to do stuff like this. I could barely say hi to a stranger without choking on anxiety.
Dr. Fernandez’s door stood ajar, and I gave it a quiet knock.
“This must be Brandon,” Dr. Fernandez said to someone. “Come in!”
I pushed the door open to find first Dr. Fernandez behind his desk and then a head of perfectly coiffed black hair. The man turned, and I was instantly paralyzed.
Jonny Lim.
His lips curled in slow motion into that smile I'd spent so many hours studying. And now he was directing it at me, in the flesh, within arm’s reach.
After a moment, the smile faltered and slid into confusion, then concern.
“Brandon?” Dr. Fernandez asked. “You okay?”
I snapped my jaw closed and nodded so hard I was sure my entire body shook.
“This is Jonathan Lim. Remember I told you we offered someone a research fellowship?”
“Please, call me Jonny. No h.” He stood part way, enough to reach over and offer me his hand.
“H-hi,” I croaked, staring at his hand a second too long before taking it in my own. My nerves short-circuited and my palm went numb. I'd never wash my hand again.
“Brandon here will show you around campus. Ask him all about our political science program. You won't get a more honest opinion from anyone else.”
“Lovely.” Jonny’s smile was amused, but his tone was genuine. He stood and hooked a leather bag over his shoulder. “Thank you very much for your time Dr. Fernandez. I’ll be in touch when I get back to Vancouver.”
Dr. Fernandez waved us out, and suddenly we were standing in the hallway, just me and Jonny Lim.
“So, Brandon.” Jonny cocked his head. “Where are you taking me? Nowhere too scandalous, I hope. We’ve only just met, after all.”
“Scandalous?” My brain whirred, scrambling to make sense of the situation I’d suddenly found myself in. “I don't know what you mean.”
Jonny laughed. I'd heard him laugh a hundred times before, even at the event the previous night. But this was different. In close quarters, directed at me, it was high fidelity and Dolby surround sound.
I struggled to breathe.
Jonny shook his head and slapped me gently on the arm. “Come on. Stairs are this way, right?”
I looked down at my arm, expecting to see his handprint on my coat sleeve. Underneath the down filling, my muscles were almost reaching their melting point. Jonny Lim touched me. He actually, physically touched me.
“You coming? Or am I giving myself a tour?” Jonny called from down the hall.
Move, Brandon!
I shuffled after him, careful not to trip over my own feet. All my hard-fought social proficiencies melted away, leaving me exposed and vulnerable. This was going to be a disaster.
2
This Brandon dude sure was . . . something. Chalking it up to awkwardness didn't quite cover it. He seemed a little bewildered, a little dumbfounded, like someone had thrown him into the deep-end, and he was trying to figure out which way was up. I had a soft spot for the slightly gawky and graceless. With his lanky build and pale complexion, it looked like he spent most of his days inside, bent over books. Maybe he was one of those academic geniuses who couldn’t tie his shoes. It made me want to fold his taller frame into a hug and love on him hard.
We were heading down the stairs when he threw something at me from left field. Or right field. I was useless with sport analogies.
“I like your podcast.” He mumbled the words so fast, I almost didn't catch them.
“Oh, thanks.” I smiled when he ducked his head as if he were a turtle. “You've listened to my podcast?”
His nod was almost imperceptible. “All of them.”
“All of them? All two-hundred plus episodes?” A momentary bout of speechlessness hit me square in the chest. I liked my podcast, but after two years of churning out the thing and hundreds of thousands of listens, it still surprised me that anyone else did. “Oh, you're my one true fan.” I stopped at the bottom of the steps and put my hand on Brandon's arm.
He stared at it, mouth agape, like it was the most precious thing in the world and he didn't know what to do with himself.
I lifted my other hand to his chin and gently nudged him to close his mouth. His eyes grew wider and his naturally translucent skin flushed a brilliant shade of red. Wait, I'd seen this expression before.
“Were you at the panel discussion last night?” I could have sworn he'd been sitting in front of a woman asking a question. She'd been practically on top of him and he’d shrunk into his seat.
Brandon’s eyes grew wider and his skin flushed brighter. He looked like a tomato. God, he was adorable.
I took a step back to give him room to breathe. It wouldn't do to kill off my one true fan, especially not one as cute as Brandon. Gradually, his skin color returned to something resembling normal.
“You were, weren't you?”
He nodded, dropping his gaze to the ground.
“Aw, that's super sweet of you.”
“You were great.”
“Yeah?” The compliment wrapped around me like a gorgeous but ill-fitting shirt. “Most of the time I feel like I'm spouting nonsense.”
“No.” Brandon shook his head in earnest. “You made a lot of sense this time.”
I burst out laughing, almost doubling over at Brandon’s look of horror as he realized what he said.
“I mean, you make a lot of sense a lot of the
time. I mean . . .” He slapped a hand over his face and muttered, “Shut up, Brandon.”
Poor guy. I took hold of his wrist and pulled his hand down. “It's fine. Really.”
Brandon glanced at where we touched, his bottom lip caught between his teeth, chest still like he was holding his breath. It was only then I realized I was running my thumb back and forth across the inside of his wrist. Oops.
“Sorry,” I said, though I was more sorry to let him go. I stuck my hands into my coat pockets in case they took on minds of their own again. I’d always been a touchy person, but Brandon was bringing all my tactile instincts to the max. “So, where are you taking me, Brandon?”
He tilted his head like a puppy who was puzzling out the question.
“Campus tour?” I prompted.
Brandon sucked in a breath like he was coming out of a daze. “Oh right. We’re in Sidney Smith Hall. It's where the School of Arts and Sciences is.”
I nodded solemnly. “I think I’ve got a decent grasp of this building. Looks kind of like a high school. Got it.”
A grin tugged at the corners of Brandon’s mouth and I felt like I’d won a prize.
He led me out of the building, and I walked into a wall of cold. Stupid, miserable East Coast winter. I popped the collar of my coat to try to keep the wind out. “Is it always this cold?”
Brandon didn't look bothered by the freezing temperature, despite the wind blowing his hair in all directions. “No, it'll be colder tomorrow. The forecast is calling for a snowstorm.”
“Ugh. Vancouver’s snowstorms are few and far between, and I like them that way.”
“We used to get a lot more snow in the winter. The last few years haven't had too much accumulation.” Brandon led us across the street and down a footpath.
“Climate change. And they’re still going on and on about those pipelines. Just leave the damn oil in the ground.”
Brandon didn’t miss a beat. “Many classical and modern philosophers would argue that natural resources exist for human exploitation. How would we live if not off the land?”
I stopped in my tracks. “Seriously?” I swore to God, if I'd been crushing on a right-wing MAGA-hat wearing conservative, I'd go bury my head in the nearest snowbank.
“Locke says if we exercise our labor on a piece of land, that land becomes our property, and all it produces is ours to transact with. Aristotle and later Descartes viewed humans as the subjects with the rest of the world as objects upon which we have the right to act. Utilitarianism argues for the greatest happiness for the greatest number, so if extracting oil brings about the greatest utility for the most people, then that's the right thing to do.”
My tongue was getting cold from how low my jaw had dropped. The dude was debating the right of humans to exploit natural resources by quoting fucking political philosophy. Forget burying my head in a snowbank; I’d bury his.
“First, the Lockean provisio is a yellow light on his labor theory of value. Sure, we can take what we want from the planet, but only if there’s enough to go around for everyone. And with fossil fuels, there aren't. Second, Aristotle and Descartes put human needs and wants above everything else. Are you telling me you don't care about the poor emaciated polar bears digging through garbage bins? How about the sad whales swimming into oncoming cargo ship traffic looking for food? You can't be that heartless. Third, the most utilitarian thing to do is keep the goddamn oil in the goddamn ground, because extracting it now benefits one sliver of this generation, but preserving the planet benefits hundreds and hundreds of generations after us.”
The last few words came out as a wheeze, and I sucked in air so frigid my lungs almost seized. Brandon blinked as if surprised that I’d come back at him with point for point rebuttals. Hey, I wasn’t only a pretty face. I’d done my fair share of political theory even if I spent most of my time as a pundit these days.
“Right, those are good points. Environmental ethics isn't my field of study, but I suppose there’s a thread of conservationism in most of those philosophies.”
“Right. Yeah. Good.”
He gave me a tiny smile, almost like he wasn’t sure if it was allowed. It was so sweet, my teeth practically ached, and my mouth curled in response.
“So what do you study?” I asked as we continued down the path that opened up into a wide snow-covered field.
Brandon glanced at me, looking unsure about what to say. “Political theory.”
I chuckled at his sudden hesitation. “I figured that much. What’s your dissertation about?”
“Oh. You really want to know?”
“Of course. I asked, didn’t I?”
He studied me with dark, uncertain eyes before answering. “History of individualism versus collectivism in political thought and its impact on the development of classical democracy.”
Whew. He wasn’t kidding about the theoretical. “Sounds like that involves a lot of long-dead old white dudes.”
Brandon cocked his head like he was taking inventory of his sources. “I do draw on the writings of many older white men.” He nodded, entirely earnest.
My heart squeezed at his honest lack of guile, at his frankness and candor. None of it was for shock value either, unlike the talking heads always competing for attention and airtime.
“Maybe I should change that,” Brandon went on, oblivious to the crush I was developing on him. “I could look into other political traditions.”
“Mao had plenty to say about individuality and collectivism,” I offered.
He nodded. “Yeah, China pre- and post-communist revolution would make a good comparative study.” Brandon looked like he was itching to pull out his laptop and scour JSTOR.
“Easy there, my little research bunny, how about you tell me where the hell we are before detouring to the library?”
Brandon scanned the area like he wasn't sure where we were either. “Oh, we’re in King’s College Circle.”
“And?” I prompted when it didn't sound like he would elaborate.
“Um, I guess it's the center of campus. That's Convocation Hall.” He pointed to a building with columns and a round green dome for a roof. “It's where students graduate.” He continued counterclockwise. “That’s the Medical Science Building. That’s the Gerstein Science Library. And that’s University College.”
It was a bare-bones tour, but I wasn’t expecting much more, given what I’d seen of Brandon in the last fifteen minutes. “Nice. This is a pretty building. It’s probably what they use for all the pictures of the school, isn’t it?” I headed to University College and its old Victorian-slash-Hogwarts-esque esthetic.
“It is,” Brandon agreed as he trailed behind me.
“Well, we should follow their lead.”
“Huh?”
“Picture time!” I pulled out my phone and ran across the narrow, empty street to find the right angle. “Come on!” I yelled back at Brandon when he didn’t follow me. He hesitated for a second before trudging over. “Okay, here we go.”
I positioned Brandon where I needed him and a little gasp escaped from him as I leaned in nice and close, my back against his chest. “Smile!”
Either Brandon didn’t know how to smile for a picture, or I’d caught him by surprise, because his bushy brows were halfway up his forehead and his mouth hung open like he was about to protest something. It was too perfect to delete.
“It’s too freaking cold out here, and my fingers will fall off. Is there somewhere indoors where we can hide?” I stuffed my hands into my pockets and stomped my feet to get the blood flowing in them again.
“Uh, there’s Hart House?”
I had no idea what that was, but I wasn’t picky. “Sounds good! Let’s go!”
Brandon turned to his left, and I scurried ahead of him.
“Faster!”
“But you don’t know where you’re going.” Brandon scampered to keep up.
“That’s why you need to go faster!” I grabbed his arm and gave him a tug. I must
have underestimated my own strength because the tug threw me off balance right as I stepped on a patch of ice. My feet flew backward while my body kept going forward and suddenly we were going down.
“Ahh!” The sound came from me.
We tumbled to the ground in a heap of limbs, bags, and winter coats. Sad, self-pitying laughter bubbled up inside me, sounding almost like a sob. “Ugh. Are you okay?”
Brandon groaned. “Yeah. I’m okay. We shouldn’t run when the ground is icy.”
“Thanks for the PSA.”
Brandon scrambled to his feet first and held out a hand to help me up. His slightly-too-long black hair was a mess, blown awry by the wind and sticking up on end. I reached up and brushed it back into place with my fingers, the strands silky and cool to the touch. Brandon let out a shaky breath that fogged into vapor between us. “You sure you’re all in one piece?”
He nodded, bottom lip caught in his teeth.
“Good, I wouldn’t want to break you.”
His winter-rosy cheeks deepened a shade, and the urge to pull him down to my height and plant a big kiss on those lips was so strong that I had to take a step back to be safe. God, he was such a precious thing.
“So, Hart House, right?”
He nodded again.
“No running this time. But we’re still in a hurry. I’m turning into an icicle out here.”
He nodded like he’d forgotten how to talk.
We made it without falling on our asses again or any impromptu kissing. Just barely.
3
We rushed into the relative warmth of Hart House, dodging students on their way out.
“Whew!” Jonny let out while stomping his feet and shaking his arms. “Wow, it’s nice in here!”
Hart House was one of the older buildings on campus with its fancy stonework and archways. It was nice, but drafty in the winter. Jonny didn’t wait for me, venturing up the stairs and peering down hallways like he was playing a game of hide and seek. He was exactly like in his podcasts—no, better than in his podcasts.
He didn’t laugh when I blurted out random political theories or stare strangely at me like I was speaking a different language. He asked about my research and actually seemed to care about my answer. He had all the shiny celebrity sparkle, and he was a genuinely nice person. Not that I’d ever had a reason to believe otherwise, but it made him all that more irresistible and me all that more tongue-tied.
Rogue Ever After (The Rogue Series Book 7) Page 7
